When printing objects that require support. And those supports have to print on top of another part of the model? How does one do this reliably.

For this print I have placed supports manually:

This is how it looks sliced. The front support printed fine.the supports below the ears both failed after a while.

If i look in the preview I can clearly see that the side supports start printing in the air. And ofset from the model (which i should be i guess).The problem is that the attachment area to the object is nearly none. And even the slightest nudge after while will push the supports clean of the print.

I made a simple model to test different supports. I noticed that when I place manually supports with a pillar (with a size of 4mm) the bottom and the top of the supports doesn't conform to the shape of the object? Is this a bug? Or has it always behaved like this? Seams really stupid or am I missing something?This is causing air printing of supports when they start. And it's also causing parts to be unsupported.

DS2017 wrote:For ideamaker Solid Base Layers would plant your support down to the base nicely. However it will affect the surface quality of your model's ponytail portion.

Best option is to take the model to MeshMixer and generate tree supports there, then take it into Ideamaker.

Based on the slicer preview it doesn't look like solid base layers will work when the support is starting on an angled surface on the actual print.Removing the 1 layer distance between the print and support might work better. But it still doesn't remove the air printing that happens when the support starts printing.

Solid Base Layers only work for base layers which are the first several layers of the printing.If you want to give each support structure a solid starter, you can try Dense Support Layer which will set both the starter and end of each support structure to be dense layers.

Noren wrote:I made a simple model to test different supports. I noticed that when I place manually supports with a pillar (with a size of 4mm) the bottom and the top of the supports doesn't conform to the shape of the object? Is this a bug? Or has it always behaved like this? Seams really stupid or am I missing something?This is causing air printing of supports when they start. And it's also causing parts to be unsupported.

There are two factors affecting your result, one is offset settings, one is pillar size.The gaps between supports and models are due to offset settings of support, horizontal offset and vertical offset under Support tab in Advanced settings.Since you choose 4mm width pillar as support type, ideaMaker will generate support structure as one and one pillar with 4*4mm size flat surface as topping. Each pillar will stop when it reaching to the model surface it needs to support. If you choose smaller size of pillar, the result will be different. You can compare the difference with Manual Support.

Noren wrote:I made a simple model to test different supports. I noticed that when I place manually supports with a pillar (with a size of 4mm) the bottom and the top of the supports doesn't conform to the shape of the object? Is this a bug? Or has it always behaved like this? Seams really stupid or am I missing something?This is causing air printing of supports when they start. And it's also causing parts to be unsupported.

There are two factors affecting your result, one is offset settings, one is pillar size.The gaps between supports and models are due to offset settings of support, horizontal offset and vertical offset under Support tab in Advanced settings.Since you choose 4mm width pillar as support type, ideaMaker will generate support structure as one and one pillar with 4*4mm size flat surface as topping. Each pillar will stop when it reaching to the model surface it needs to support. If you choose smaller size of pillar, the result will be different. You can compare the difference with Manual Support.

Must the pillars have flat bottom and top?Can't the pillars conform to the object there you place them? Both at the bottom and the top?And why can the support be placed in mid air?(When placing the 4 mm pillar and only half is over the object, the other half will air print).

So my "solution" here seems to place smaller manual support.But that causes the support structure to be "flimsy" and weak.Or I will have to place a lot of touching small supports to get a god solid print of the support. This takes to much work and time. Especially when the model is high res and IdeaMaker is struggling with rendering it.And even these smaller support pillars have flat top and bottom and will not conform to the curvature of the model.

I could use automatic support but that makes to many support structures.And when making automatic support with a small pillar size i'm back to the problem were I have to many small, free standing, support pillars. More chance of failing.

I'm not sure If I can convey my problem clearly so that you understand my problem and what i'm after.

Noren wrote:I made a simple model to test different supports. I noticed that when I place manually supports with a pillar (with a size of 4mm) the bottom and the top of the supports doesn't conform to the shape of the object? Is this a bug? Or has it always behaved like this? Seams really stupid or am I missing something?This is causing air printing of supports when they start. And it's also causing parts to be unsupported.

There are two factors affecting your result, one is offset settings, one is pillar size.The gaps between supports and models are due to offset settings of support, horizontal offset and vertical offset under Support tab in Advanced settings.Since you choose 4mm width pillar as support type, ideaMaker will generate support structure as one and one pillar with 4*4mm size flat surface as topping. Each pillar will stop when it reaching to the model surface it needs to support. If you choose smaller size of pillar, the result will be different. You can compare the difference with Manual Support.

Must the pillars have flat bottom and top?Can't the pillars conform to the object there you place them? Both at the bottom and the top?And why can the support be placed in mid air?(When placing the 4 mm pillar and only half is over the object, the other half will air print).

So my "solution" here seems to place smaller manual support.But that causes the support structure to be "flimsy" and weak.Or I will have to place a lot of touching small supports to get a god solid print of the support. This takes to much work and time. Especially when the model is high res and IdeaMaker is struggling with rendering it.And even these smaller support pillars have flat top and bottom and will not conform to the curvature of the model.

I could use automatic support but that makes to many support structures.And when making automatic support with a small pillar size i'm back to the problem were I have to many small, free standing, support pillars. More chance of failing.

I'm not sure If I can convey my problem clearly so that you understand my problem and what i'm after.

By now, ideaMaker only one type of manual support structure which is been generated as one and one rectangular block. And as I said above, each block will support the model structure above it, which will stop generating when it has touched the model surface. You need to balance the pros and cons between smaller size with more adjustments and risks and larger size not fitting model structure well. Or you can manual add support pillar with large size and adjust the height of support to cover the model around totally. But that will add more supports than you need in most cases which add a lot after works.

Vicky@Raise3D wrote:Or you can manual add support pillar with large size and adjust the height of support to cover the model around totally. But that will add more supports than you need in most cases which add a lot after works.

Vicky@Raise3D wrote:Or you can manual add support pillar with large size and adjust the height of support to cover the model around totally. But that will add more supports than you need in most cases which add a lot after works.